


Look Away

by idksomethingclever



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Hal's commitment issues, Light Angst, M/M, greatest mess in the galaxy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:41:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6956845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idksomethingclever/pseuds/idksomethingclever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal does something...spontaneous while riding the after-battle high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Away

Hal is a spontaneous guy.

He doesn’t need to be the world’s greatest detective to know that.

But…this might just take the cake.

So, the battle had just ended. Emotions were running high, endorphins doing their thing, so on so on. It’s not out of the ordinary to get excited, right?

So, grabbing Batman’s cowled face and planting a big sloppy kiss on his chapped lips? Perfectly normal. 

Endorphins. 

\-------

“Lantern,” Bruce says, as he enters the conference room.

It’s been a few days since the…incident. The one where Hal smooched his arch-frenemy, said “whoospie,” and fled like the Black Hand was creeping up behind him.

Whoopsie. 

“Heeey, Batman.” He makes a lame finger-gun gesture and promptly wants to die. 

Barry, sitting right next to him because they’re about to start their goddamn weekly meeting, looks at Hal like he lost his fucking mind. Hal avoids eye-contact with his best friend and decides to do what he does best: make a bad situation ten times worse.

“How’s the bat-business going? Has the little tyke murdered anyone, yet? Ivy give you a bad case of allergies?” Oh god, someone stop him.

Barry abruptly leans forward and waves exaggeratedly at the door. “Oh, hey Diana.”

“It’s nice to see you, Flash. Lantern. Batman.” She nods at each of them in turn and sits down. If she notices anything weird, she keeps it to herself. 

Hal barely stops himself from giving Barry a big ol’ pair of heart eyes. He’s blessedly able to keep his mouth shut while the rest of the league filters in. They get started soon enough and, like always, Hal promptly zones out.

He finds himself watching Bruce, who’s motioning at something pulled up on the projector. Hal’s been trying and failing to forget the kiss for the past few days. The rest of the league had been scattered over the battlefield, so no one else was privy to the moment, thank god. Hal, despite constantly squabbling with Bruce, knows the guy pretty well and can guess what was running through his head. For all of Bruce’s calculations, he probably never accounted for this. Damn, not even Hal himself would’ve accounted for it. There’s a fine line between love and hate, eh?

Hal, in a rare display of self-control, bites back a groan. 

There’s also the small inconvenience that Hal cannot stop remembering what it felt like. Bruce’s lips were chipped, his cowl was cold under Hal’s fingers. The warm puff of breath when Hal abruptly pulled away. The startled slack to his mouth, inching down into a characteristic frown.

Hal catches himself staring at Bruce’s lips and this time can’t hold back a sharp intake of breath. Bruce pauses momentarily in whatever the hell he’s saying and Hal can imagine his blue eyes flicking over to Hal. They’re both wearing masks, but Hal is caught in the white lenses of the cowl. Look away, Hal thinks to himself. The black of the cowl is a startling contrast to Bruce’s skin. The lenses are slanted, harsh, and Hal can feel them pin him in place. Look away, look away.

Someone’s chair squeaks and the tension between them shatters. Hal drums his fingers on the table and focuses on a spot on the wall.

Bruce picks seamlessly picks up where he left off.

Hal doesn’t look back at Bruce for the rest of the meeting and is the first to leave. It isn’t anything out of the ordinary- Hal never sticks around.

\-------

Hal is puttering around the kitchen, deciding whether to pour himself a bowl of cereal or make some EasyMac. He goes with the EasyMac, on the basis that it won’t smell as bad when he inevitably forgets to clean the bowl.

His phone chirps at him. He unlocks the screen with his pinky.

-still coming in tomorrow @ 9?

It’s a text from Carol.

He gives the phone a fond smile.

-no alien invasion. good 2 go. 

Hal would say that it was weird working with his ex, if it was anyone but Carol. But she’s stubborn and she decided that it wouldn’t be awkward. And Hal, well, Hal concedes that this is an order he can afford to follow. It helped that they had a bond, developed over a shared background of tragedy and several life-and-death situations, that was buried beneath the romance.

Another chirp. 

-see you tomorrow, flyboy.

His heart clenches, more out of habit than anything. The microwave dings and Hal, distracted, grabs the heated ceramic with his bare hands. He flinches and a moment later his floor is newly decorated. 

“Greatest Green Lantern in the galaxy,” he mutters and uses his ring to clean up the mess.

It was good that he ran away, Hal decides. With Carol. With Bruce. He’s barely on-planet. He doesn’t know how to support a partner is a relationship. He doesn’t know what they want. He doesn’t know how to give it to them.

Look away, he had thought, in the meeting. Look away. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

The ceramic sherds slam into the trashcan with a clang.

No fear. In the middle of battle Hal can say it with pride. He once stared into the literal eyes of death.

No fear. In times like this, when he’s alone in his bare apartment, the words hang in the stale air.


End file.
